Questions bloggers should stop asking

January 10, 2016

If you’ve been paying attention you’ll have probably realised that this blog is basically me having a conversation with myself in a rather public forum. Sometimes my thoughts echo the general consensus of Blogdom, sometimes I’m just fucking weird.

Having been party to many a blog-based Facebook group, drunken meet up, What’s App conversation and just by generally reading blogs, I suspect (know) that many other bloggers have asked themselves these same nasty ass questions. Today I’m going to be the person who takes these things out of the shadows and says them out loud. Then I’m going to answer the questions because when I have these nasty, awful, terrible thoughts (or see them written down by others) I tend to dwell on them and then I chastise myself and really work them out of my system. That’s what this is.

Now, you’ll either all agree with me that you’ve had these terrible thoughts in the past too and we can form some kind of bloggy support group to team together and stop having them, or I’ll be left out in the cold like the terrible person I am.

Q: Why does /other blogger get more comments that me? Their posts aren’t even that good and there’s always a mountain of typos.

A: Is their target audience militant grammar Nazis who have somehow stumbled upon a guilty pleasure read? No? Then fuck off with that reasoning. Their blog comments and interaction are probably not directly related to the number of spelling errors. If their stuff genuinely isn’t blowing your tits off with its wonderfulness then it’s more feasible that /other blogger probably comments a lot on other people’s blogs. Good comments. Nice comments. The kind that people like to read on their blogs.

Those people then harbour a good opinion of said blogger and are reminded that they exist enough to go and visit their blog and probably leave a comment or two back, you know, to repay the favour and leave a kind of calling card. You do this often enough it becomes a habit. Soon reading that blog and commenting on that blog is ingrained in your routine. Voila. A big pile of comments, even with the odd typo.

Q: Why do more people read /other blog than read mine when I know mine is better?

A: You might be right. You might be goddamn Van Gogh of blogging, unappreciated in your own lifetime. Your blog might actually be better structured, better edited and you may have more literary flair in your deviated septum than /other blogger has in their perfectly manicured fingers and expensively cobbled shoefies. But they have something their audience wants and you need to figure that shit out. That’s all there is to it.

They probably interact with their community, rather than just posting stuff and then expecting people to love them (god why doesn’t that work?!). Their shit might be golden in terms of SEO. If they have a lot of twitter action they probably share a lot of other peoples stuff on twitter and tweet nice or entertaining things to people. This is in addition to having content on their blogs that’s clearly good enough . Obviously the better your content the easier community engagement shall be.

Q:/Other blogger is such a liar. Why can’t everyone else see how fake they are?

A: Either they are a big old dishonest liar or they’re not. Either you’re being a jealous twat or you’re right. If it’s the second one do you really think you’re the only person who can figure that out? You think you’re that special? Everyone else on the planet believes their platitudes and you’ve accidentally eaten the magic beans of sound judgement?

Look, if their lies are blatant enough for you to figure them out, they’re blatant enough for all sorts of other folks to figure out too. Their “community” is probably a bit of a mirage. Lots of people will be attracted to someone if they’re getting a lot of attention because they’ll want to deflect some of that light onto themselves. The comments of “I’m definitely trying this” are empty. They’ll leave when nothing comes of it. Brands will figure out the ruse. It may play on for a bit, but it’s nothing for you to concern yourself over.

Q:/Other blogger is doing something that doesn’t quite play by the rules of good sportsmanship. Why doesn’t anyone report them?

A: Stop being a twat. Either have a private word with them if you think they’re genuinely clueless and need a hand or mind your own business and work on building a better blog for yourself. Look, if they are actually doing something illegal and you want to nark, it’s your own choice, but you’re probably expending a lot of time and energy creeping their blog and their business and it’s not helping your life plan any. Google, ASA, their mum, whoever it is you need to tell, just know that they may not actually care at the end of the day. Ask yourself, are you doing it for the moral crusade or because you’ve got a bit of the green eyed beaver (that’s when you’re jealous and too much of a pussy to call them out to their face)?

Basically, what I’m saying to myself is: sort your shit out, and stop worrying about everyone else. What ever it is they’re doing that annoys you so much obviously isn’t the right course of action for you anyway, so stop chasing things that don’t make you happy.